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Is Intel X25-M the best SSD to be used as a boot drive?

O

ozbummer

Junior Member
Hi,

I am looking for a SSD boot drive (includes applications like Office) for my notebook. My requirements are: good speed and excellent quality/reliability/longevity. I think 60-100GB is enough for the purpose.

Does the Intel X25-M fits the bill? Or there are other better alternatives?

After reading numerous Anandtech articles on SSD performance I am quite confused. Your expert opinion is appreciated.

TIA

OzB
 
The X25-M and various Indilinx-based drives (OCZ Vertex, Agility, etc.) should do the trick.

What operating system are you going to be running, and what is your intended use?
 
I have an Intel X25 M G2 80 gig that has my OS (Win 7 Pro 64) along with Office 2007 and some other small programs. I have a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 tb for everything else (games etc) EXTREMELY fast setup.
 
The various Indilinx-based drives (OCZ Vertex, Agility, etc.) are better at this point.
You will also get better support from the company vs. intel.

Only some specific server centered uses might benefit from the intel's higher theoretical I/O.
 
What about the new Sandforce drives from Crucial? I thought those were the fastest.
 
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The Sauce said:
What about the new Sandforce drives from Crucial? I thought those were the fastest.
Click to expand...

Probably are ... haven't seen any benchmarks though I remember reading something along those lines. I would get something decent but not too expensive, since SSD tech is evolving so fast.
OCZ is a good bet since they are great about issuing new firmware for old drives (e.g. TRIM). Intel sucks for that (and customer support). Don't know much about Crucial.
 
The SandForce drives are faster, but the price v. performance (real world) premium is a bit too much at the moment. Getting 20% more space for 25% less money with a 120GB Vertex v. 100GB Vertex LE made me return my Vertex LE after a few days but the SandForce drive is faster.
 
According to the article here on AT, the Intel drive does not degrade in performance as much as the offerings from OCZ even if the OS does not support TRIM. Based on all the benchmarks I've seen I think the X25-M still the best drive overall, even if there are other SSD drives which are initially faster. The only place the X25-M was lagging to other SSDs was with write times, but unless you spend most of your time copying files I don't think it's really going to matter as it was still reaching its advertised speeds. It's still among the fastest for random 4KB reads which is what you would perceive as a more responsive system.
 
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The best drive for you at this point is, in fact, the Intel. It is an excellent choice and when comparing it to the others (excluding the new Marvell and SandForce controllers), one needs to understand exactly why it is the choice of many and has, in fact, become the baseline of all ssd benchmarking as of late.

The Intel is phenomenal at small 4kb random reads and writes whereas the others are not (excluding Marvell and Sandforce controllers). These random reads and writes are the most important to the consumer because they are what is going to bring you the LARGEST VISIBLE PERFORMANCE difference to a typical system. This is simply because your OS and applications rely on alot of small dynamic link libraries and similar files to start and run quickly. These are picked up mainly through your 4kb small random reads and writes.

Manufacturers have never liked to advertise this point because they want to showcase the highest number which is that of the large sequential reads and somewhere around 260MB/s for a typical ssd nowadays. People gasp in amazement at this mind boggling speed yet don't realize that most will ever only use this speed less thatn 1% of the time on their system and it doesn't account for visible performance unless you are reading.writing very large multiGB files.

It looks good however right?

Here is something of interest for you:

Top 5 Most Frequent Drive Accesses by Type and Percentage
-8K Write (56.35%)
-8K Read (7.60%)
-1K Write (6.10%)
-16 Write (5.79%)
-64K Read (2.49%)
Top 5 account for: 78.33% of total drive access over test period
Largest access size in top 50: 256K Read (0.44% of total)

Now having said all of this, out comes the new Crucial C300 and OCZ/Crucial/OWC drives with new controllers from Marvell and SandForce.

Would i suggest these if you had the big bucks for them? Nope...not yet. Both Intel and Samsung have something in common that many others dont have as of yet which is customer confidence and reliability. They haven't suffered large percentage failures/stuttering/pausing as seems to be a common thread with most others as they try to climb to top of the hill.

We have seen one of the first problems in the JMicron 602 stuttering from MANY manufacturers that used that controller to the present C300 failures which seem to be popping up every day and now there are even a few failures from the SandForce...

Myself, If I was buying today I would look for reliability from a proven controller at a great price and the best benchmarks....this is the Intel in the end and shown in most reviews...

Check the bottom right of The SSD Review and their are a few benchmark results there to assist.
 
For Sandforce, I honestly would wait until 2011 before considering. Firmware issues are just barely sorted out for the new controllers, while the Intel controller is rapidly approaching 2 years (from G1). If you want bleeding edge and have a good backup strategy (you do have a good backup strategy, right?), then go with Sandforce.
 
I have to ask where these numbers come from. I don't question the importance of small reads and writes (although I'd have a secondary bulk hard disk for anything transactional). I do find it counterintuitive that over half the disk activity would be one particular class of write transaction. I would think reads would be more of the transaction load.

flamenko said:
<snip>

Here is something of interest for you:

Top 5 Most Frequent Drive Accesses by Type and Percentage
-8K Write (56.35%)
-8K Read (7.60%)
-1K Write (6.10%)
-16 Write (5.79%)
-64K Read (2.49%)
Top 5 account for: 78.33% of total drive access over test period
Largest access size in top 50: 256K Read (0.44% of total)

<snip>
Click to expand...
 
I'm looking at doing a build. This is the exact mass storage setup I'm considering at the moment.

guskline said:
I have an Intel X25 M G2 80 gig that has my OS (Win 7 Pro 64) along with Office 2007 and some other small programs. I have a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 tb for everything else (games etc) EXTREMELY fast setup.
Click to expand...
 
BBMW said:
I have to ask where these numbers come from. I don't question the importance of small reads and writes (although I'd have a secondary bulk hard disk for anything transactional). I do find it counterintuitive that over half the disk activity would be one particular class of write transaction. I would think reads would be more of the transaction load.
Click to expand...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/5930600-post3793.html

The generality and logic of this is also supported elsewhwer, especially when u consider what is being done during the different access methods.
 
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